Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 24, 1990 TAG: 9006240058
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-12 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Medium
Big mistake. The kid should have been sent to the parent's room, a place that has no CD boom boxes or high-tech sneakers.
Leno delivers the punchline in a TV commercial for tortilla chips, but as an increasing number of businesses are discovering, today's teens are in a position to buy far more than snack foods. Controlling more cash than the thirtysomething set can imagine, many adolescents are downright affluent, and they're playing a part in big-ticket purchases like never before.
Peter Zollo, who heads Teenage Research Unlimited in suburban Chicago, said they are "significantly more confident in their ability to buy big-ticket items than they were just one year ago."
Teen car ownership is up nearly 13 percent for new vehicles and 9 percent for used cars when compared with 1989 levels, according to Zollo's survey of more than 2,000 teens.
Nearly half own their own television sets, compared with just 29 percent a decade ago, and about 20 percent own video cassette recorders, the New York market research firm Rand Youth Poll found.
Teens spent $55.9 billion last year just on their day-to-day needs, up from $25.3 billion in 1975, Rand studies said.
But teens also are buying some of the family groceries - $31.7 billion worth last year alone, according to Rand - all while making critical brand decisions.
That hasn't gone unnoticed by corporate America. Weight Watchers and Lean Cuisine, for instance, have begun advertising their frozen entrees in youth magazines in the hope teen-agers will pick up a box or two while shopping for the family.
When it comes to earning power, demographics and economics have combined quite favorably for teens. For one thing, there are fewer of them out there, which means more jobs available.
The number of Americans between 13 and 19 has fallen 15.5 percent since 1980, to 22.76 million, according to Rand Youth Poll. Although the teen population is expected to be begin increasing in 1992, no substantial upturn will take hold until the year 2000.
"The changeover from a manufacturing to a service economy requires just the type of employee the teen-ager is," said Rand President Lester Rand. "And some [teens] do get premium pay because in many suburban areas there is a shortage of this type of personnel."
McDonald's Corp., for one, boasts that it is not a "minimum-wage employer."
It is not unheard of for a high school student to bring in anywhere from $100 to $300 a week for part-time work, Rand said.
Beyond their own spending, teens have an incalculable ability to influence the purchases of their parents.
"They are used as advisors to adults in the family to buy high-tech audio equipment, where they know a hell of a lot more than grownups, as well as vacations, automobiles and where the family goes to dinner tonight," Fitzgibbon said.
Zollo's survey said 57 percent of teens influenced the purchase of a personal computer this year, 69 percent had input on family vacation plans, 49 percent had a say in which car their families bought, and 43 percent helped parents pick out a TV.
by CNB